


Happiness: A Theory

by orphan_account



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 19:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5060785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One memory that Dan holds from that summer, although it's faded and blurry like a bad polaroid, being on the beach with Phil, just as the sun was beginning to set, casting everything around them in an orange light. Phil picks up a rock and throws it. It lands with a ker-plunk in the dark water before them, frothing against the rocks. When Phil was younger, he and his long-since-forgotten friends would perch upon the sharp rocks and watch the silvery fish dart about in the sea. Together they sit on the big, flat rock that cuts out over the waves, both flinging stones into the distance. </p>
<p>“I could see myself living by the sea in the future,” Phil says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happiness: A Theory

**Author's Note:**

> Wow okay its finally done holy crap!! This has been my baby since forever? (Shoutout to my baeta, all-hail-fish-fingers-and-custard.tumblr.com and my incredible artist achivementhowell.tumblr.com for staying on board this crazy train through all my procrastination, plot changes, and thoughts of dropping out. yikes.) thank you kendall danisnotinterestinq.tumblr.com for cheering me on, i love you to pieces. also my best friends michael, sarah and bry you're all so so amazing thank you so much for listening to my hardly coherent ramblings about this fic. WARNING: HOMOPHOBIA, SLIGHT SMUT, SWEARING, HOSPITALS.

Resting his hand on top of his knuckles, Phil stares blankly at the chalkboard, examining the curriculum for his final assignment for his creative writing class. Written almost illegibly, the word HAPPINESS takes up almost the entire upper half of the board. Sighing with exhaustion, Phil digs out a pen as his teacher, Professor Andras, a soft spoken man with a rather lanky and disheveled form, underlines the word, producing a harsh sounding screech to erupt from the scratch of the chalk. Fumbling as he sets down the chalk, he places his itinerary on the podium and faces the small class of eighteen. 

“For your final assignment,” He says, paging through his notes, “You will have the entire summer holiday to write about happiness,” This draws a prolonged sigh from the class, apart from Pj Liguori, who was already vigorously jotting down ideas in his notebook. It makes sense for the final assignment to be somewhat uplifting, especially after writing nothing but horror and tear inducing short stories the whole year. It’s not like Phil was a pessimist, it's that the idea of sadness came more easily to him than a happy, fluffy, story that could cop him at least a B. 

“I understand that the last time any of you have written about a happy time must’ve been writing a ten sentence paragraph about your first pet for show and tell when you were seven,” Andras mimps. “But as this is your final assignment for me, I need all of you-” He adjusts his line of vision to Phil in the corner- “To step it up a bit,” Adjusting his glasses he returned to his desk, prompting sounds of rigorous scribbling and typing from Phil’s peers. He, on the other hand lacked ideas entirely, from the moment the project was assigned, to walking back from class and bearing Pj’s spiel of ideas and creations to write about. Pj was a straight A student, it was evident in the way he centered himself around his schoolwork; and the way he grew passionate about writing as the classes drew on. It's not that Phil was in love with writing, or that he hated it either. It was all he really knew how to do. After a lackluster goodbye to Pj, Phil opened the door to his dorm to discover that his roommate had already packed and left. The room was gray, clean, identical to all the others in the building. Pj’s, of course, was always lit up over the holidays, white lights woven through the ceiling and a certain feeling ease that came with the messy atmosphere. Pjs dorm was the closest emotion to home, in a way, at least compared to Phil’s quiet, plain, dark abode. Phil doubts Pj is even close to packing. Glancing around the dorm, Phil drags his fingers through his hair, sighing. The room was pale and quiet, like him, and Pj’s dorm was bright, enthusiastic, buzzing. It was school that made him so down, Phil tells himself, the bed groaning as he sat on the edge. The thought of holiday made him grin, the idea of returning to his old friends and family delightful. There was a chance he wouldn’t visit Pj over the break, he muses, eyes fixating on a dusty snow globe still resting on the windowsill above his headboard. He liked Pj, but Pj reminded him of school, and school reminded him of whatever kind of ‘funk’ he was in. Maybe it had to do with the block; the stress, perhaps? Taking the snowglobe between his fingers, Phil shakes it, smiling feebly at the flakes of snow drifting around the family of penguins in the center of the dome. Phil shakes his head at the silly trinket and tosses it into an open cardboard box parallel to him on the sheetless bed. Already feeling a bit more lighthearted, he opens his laptop to try to start his happiness memoir. 

After hours of staring at a blinking cursor and watching the sun duck behind the buildings across the parking lot, paired with echoing sounds of parties in the distance, Phil’s eyelids slowly started to sink. Lying against the stiff metal headboard, laptop still leaning haphazardly off of his thighs, Phil slips into a dreamless sleep. 

Awoken by the sound of a bustling campus, Phil rubs his eyes as he wakes. Ridiculing himself for once again, falling asleep with his glasses on, he slides his now, bent, glasses up the bridge of his nose. Through the faint rays of light jutting out from under his blinds, he can see his fellow classmen scrambling to drag their boxes and bags out of their dorms. He must’ve overslept; the dorm inspector is probably already perusing the building. Slipping off the bed and folding his laptop into his backpack, for the most part, Phil’s already packed for the holiday. Shit, the boxes! Phil realizes, sleepily scratching the back of his head. He steps over the items and opens the door to reveal a crowded hallway, scampering, hungover students dragging boxes over the carpet, producing a rugged, scraping sound. 

He starts with the largest boxes, struggling to pull them towards the door. He should’ve accepted the wheeled carts offered yesterday. 

“Need some help?” 

 

Pj looms in the doorway, hands in his pockets, squatting a bit in the shrunken doorway. 

“Yeah, sure,” Phil huffs. Pj, being far more fit than Phil, grunts as he hoists one of the boxes up on his knee. 

“Jesus, these are heavy. How much stuff do you have?”

“A lot.”

Phil grabs the many duffels and carry-on bags he’d taken, Pj carrying two boxes stacked on top of eachother. Finding a gap in the mob, they slip into the stairwell, Phil taking the lead. 

“What’re you doing over the holiday?” Pj asks, even though he knew the answer. Phil did the same thing every break; spend time with his family, skype with Pj, complain, avoid assignments. Not like Pj was planning anything terribly interesting either. Nobly, he had taken up a date with his neighbor, Chris, but it hadn’t been going exactly as planned, it wasn’t like the last one. 

“Nothing,” Phil sighs, shifting the striped duffel to his other arm to rub his eyes. “My mum said someone’s moving into the guesthouse, which sucks,”

Phil’s family lives on a large property, with an expansive brick mansion and a smaller, recently revamped guesthouse the Lesters had been renting out. A new tenant had most likely already moved in, Phil thinks bitterly. The last had been a crabby old woman with two dogs that howled at the moon every night, for hours on end. Before that, a buff, tall, scary, young man- about Phil’s age- who threw insane parties every night, right in the garden near Phil’s window. Much to the Lesters’ discontent, he hadn’t been violating Mrs. Lester’s policy of allowing “small get-togethers to be held at the guesthouse.” Although it might make Phil seem stuck up, a stranger living with he and his family was unpleasant. 

By this time the pair had wound their way outside, to the student parking lot. 

“Are you packed?” Phil asks, just noticing Pj’s lack of need to carry his items. 

“Nope,” He replies, a hint of a smile in his tone. “Here,” He adds, tossing Phil the keys to his car. 

Pj’s car was on its last legs. Even he could admit, it had seen better days; the bumper was barely holding on, tufts of stuffing bursting from the shredded leather seats. The blue pick up truck was probably once a sleek vehicle, in the 80’s, perhaps. Splatters of rust covered the bonnet like someone had flicked a paintbrush onto the car. 

Balancing the staggering boxes on his knee, Pj kicked the latch of the boot open. Not very gently he pushed the boxes to the back, Phil shortly after setting down a few of the heavier duffels. 

Stepping into the passenger’s seat, right to the left of Pj, who was struggling to start the car. 

“Just… fucking-” The engine groaned, omitting an equally as annoyed groan from Pj. Phil crosses his legs and smiles at his friend’s determination. 

“You need a new car, Peej,” 

Just after Phil spoke, the car sputters and finally starts. 

“Aha!” Pj shouts triumphantly, his curls askew. “Sometimes you just gotta… punch the steering wheel,” His voice fades as Pj tries to conjure an explanation. “I’ll just drop you off; it's on the way to the airport, anyway,” He muses, leaning over the dashboard to perceive a better view of the chaotic parking lot.

“You don’t have to drive me,” Phil blurts. “I mean, it's a two hour drive, and…” He twists his mouth into a lopsided ‘L’ shape. Pj, not getting the hint, insisted on giving his friend a ride- “It won’t be two hours at the speed I drive”. Unable to produce an excuse that wouldn’t hurt Pj’s feelings, Phil reluctantly obliges. 

Most of Lester's weren’t stuck up. God, no. It embarasses Phil, anyway: the wealth, the shiny Mercedes parked just so on the driveway, even the feeble old woman clipping bushes in the front lawn. That’s why the idea of Pj coming to his house would be so unbearably awkward. Surely his parents would like his friend, after all, only a few of those come around every often, but it was the whole aspect of the life the Lesters lived, that would turn Pj away, the way it had every other friend. 

Anyone who had seen the family before could easily tell that they were ‘serious business’. Designer watches, tailored suits, earrings of every gem for his mother. One wouldn’t expect the lanky, lowly-looking one, trailing behind them to be one of the family. He was a black sheep- both literally and metaphorically; as an act of defiance, Phil had dyed his hair black, but liked it and kept it that way, much to Mrs. Lester’s discontent. You could imagine her reaction to Phil’s majoring in creative writing and/or journalism. They were appalled.  
“I’m going to sleep for a while,” Phil finally speaks, after about thirty music of barely dependable, static-y radio. “Wake me up if you want me to drive,”

Phil’s eyesight begins to soften and his eyelids feel like barbells slumping against the sun dappled window. He’s warm when he falls asleep, hours of fatigue washing off of him like a river. 

 

“What’s your address, again?” Pj quips, squinting as he pulls the car to a screeching halt. 

“5482, Pin Oak drive,” Yawns Phil, foiling his previous idea of giving Pj a fake address. Pj tried to hide his surprise at the name. He knew Phil’s family was rich, but Pin Oak was definitely the upmost of the wealthy. 

By the time Phil had fully risen, the warmth he had laid under was replaced by a moderate chill.  
Pj drives slowly, the clang-slam-drag of his car seeming to lessen. 

“Is this it?” He asks, sounding astonished. 

Before the two sat an expansive property, at least 600 acres large; a swimming pool out back, a fountain in front of the white brick three-story, behind it a smaller replica, the guesthouse, which Phil had been hoping to stay in. The thin trees in the front yard quake as the wind picks up and the once speckled blue sky became white. Bland, that’s the word, Phil almost says out loud. Everything here is bland. 

No one appeared to be home for Phil’s return, and Pj opted to help Phil with his things, to which he reluctantly obliged. But Phil doesn’t let Pj inside, and insists on leaving his items on the porch. 

“Aren’t you late for your flight?”

If anything, Pj was right on time. But Pj was picking up the vibe Phil was setting off, the same shift that separates school Phil from home Phil. He doesn’t want Pj around him, not yet. 

“I suppose,” It comes out as more of a question. “Bye, Phil,” The hug started off as lackluster and forced, but Pj pulls Phil into a warm embrace, wishing his friend goodbye despite Phil’s antisocial nature that day. 

And as soon as the big blue pick up truck was out of view, Phil was, once again, all alone in a big bland world. 

+

“Phil, dinner!” 

Once again, Phil’s trying to focus on his summer assignment of HAPPINESS. He has nothing, yet. Closing his laptop, Phil steps outside his bedroom and down the stairs. 

“I’m so happy you’re home,” Mrs. Lester sighs, pushing her graying hair out of her face and pulling Phil into another hug. Phil, being 6’2”, towers over his mother. She smiles, and Phil can’t help but imitate his mother’s grin. 

“Where’s dad?” Phil asks, the two of them still in the kitchen. Mrs. Lester’s eyes flicker. 

Phil’s father, the CEO of a major trading company had not spared enough time to come home to visit his oldest son upon his holiday. 

“Let’s sit down,” 

Dinner was served by a woman Phil doesn’t recognize, probably a new aid for his mother now that his father has prioritized work. White plates on white tablecloths on marble floors. B-L-A-N-D. The warm demeanor has completely vanished; leaving Phil and his mother with an artificial, branded dinner that neither of them can taste. This is why Phil hates being home. The fakeness of his family was fickle; sometimes it would be soft like the first morning of summer, other times it felt like there was a barcode on the back of his head. 

As the woman Phil didn’t bother to learn the name of placed the food on the table- grilled chicken, vegetables, salad- his mother began to make small talk. 

“Your sister isn’t coming in tomorrow, she’s going with your father,” She murmurs, cutting up the chicken. “And there’s a new tenant moving in the guesthouse,” 

Phil feels a pang of jealousy strike at his chest, two, actually, one for losing the guesthouse, another for his father always holding his sister above Phil. 

As if she could read minds, Mrs. Lester adds: “Maybe when you get you’re own house you can move into the guesthouse there,” She sticks a piece of chicken in her mouth. Phil can see in the window behind his mother that the sun is already setting, but the sunset is still branded and plastic; as if the colors just weren’t gradient enough. 

“May I be excused?” He asks, a sick feeling entering his empty stomach. Before his mother could reply, Phil pushes in his chair and exits through the carpeted hallway, back up the stairs, and to his bedroom. 

The one plus side to living in the middle of nowhere is the faint stars that only sometimes are visible, and Phil guesses that’s enough for him. The world is running too fast, he thinks, giving the snow globe a shake. He’s on the edge of his bed, right underneath a skylight in an awkward corner of Phil’s room. Of course the stars were gone tonight, and of course only someone desperate would wish upon a snow globe. 

He shakes it again. Inspiration, he thinks, watching the flakes waft to the bottom of the globe. 

Assuming no one’s ever wished upon a snow globe before, Phil wonders how many wishes he could possibly demand of a piece of glass and plastic. Someplace new, he shakes the globe. 

The room is turning dark around him, and there are no stars to light the way. No Halley’s comet, what he had been hoping to use this wish on. 

He shakes it with more vigor and thinks: Something new, Something not bland, not dull and lifeless. 

But who the fuck wastes wishes on a snow globe? 

Phil stares at the glass dome, and he makes out a faint reflection in the darkness. The black hair his mother despises, the eyes Phil deems a bit too vibrant, as if it didn’t match his personality, or at least, who he was trying to be. 

The smiling snowman in the center of the globe almost seems to be mocking Phil. The acrylic grin, an orange triangle for a nose. And the snow that blurred around him, the white, dull, fake snow that suffocated him with every shake. 

Phil places the trinket on his nightstand and sighs, wondering if he’ll ever leave this snowglobe. 

Or if he even wanted too. 

Wasting wishes on fake things and fake people. Maybe that’s all life is, Phil thinks, people who try for a wish they know won’t come true and end up falling asleep under a blanket of stars until they become one. Phil never understood the world’s obsession with stars, especially what he would hear leave the lips of teenagers leant against the brick walls of his school, murmuring about the universe, the planets, how everyone has always been a star and how some shine brighter than others. Phil couldn’t shake the image of the sky falling faster and faster towards him, suffocating him until there is nothing left of what once was shaking hands, a pounding heart and those stupid green eyes. 

The crickets play their symphony as Phil shuts his eyes again, into a restless sleep prior to morning, which comes with an overwhelmingly powerful stench of damp leaves. Phil can hear voices downstairs; one familiar, one not. He gingerly steps down the spiral staircase and into the kitchen, where a tall boy sits in one of the chairs and his mother leans against the countertop. 

The boy makes Phil’s heart thud like his uncle’s grandfather clock. He had such vivid memories of watching the pendulum swing from side to side, an off-key gong proceeding every hour. Phil realizes later that he should have known the boy was a bad sign if he was making him this flustered without talking to him. 

He looks warm. Phil doesn’t even know his name but he knows that this boy, this man, is autumn personified, with hair the colour of the leaves you crunch under your shoe and eyes the color of the dirt under your nails. His voice is deep and calming, like the quiet wind that lulls you to sleep on a November night. It’s as if humans came with colour palettes; his would be yellow and orange and crimson, like a sunset or a fire, in contrast, Phil’s would be cream, navy and purple. Like a winter’s night upon a bitter dawn, when the snow sits only just upon the grass and frozen dewdrops. Phil rocks on his heels and waits for the autumn tennant to introduce himself and makes certain that he has fully removed his eyes from the guest, bashfully avoiding his glance. 

“Hi, I’m Dan,” He says quietly, in the voice that anyone could just melt into. His hair fell to one side, the opposite of Phil’s, and one piece had gone astray onto his forehead; an askew curl. 

“Phil,” He responds quietly, his mother tapping her manicured fingers on the marble countertop with anticipation. 

 

“Dan’s about your age,” She blurts, as if proud of her find. Nodding, Phil marches to the pantry in search of cereal. 

Phil’s sexuality had been a confusing thing for his parents to follow. He’s had girlfriends, in high school, but none serious. He kept to himself, but he had never been repelled by the thought of being with another man, after all, in his neck of the woods, in a way, the concept of opposing love had been scarce. Phil remembers back to when he was seven or so, when two girls in his class had held hands on the playground. He recalls the memory while still lingering in the pantry, but it feels as vivid as ever. The first time he saw his friends kiss was when a mud splattered Phil dove for the football, into the mulch, to look up to see that the girl he had liked was not, in fact, admiring his flawless save. Rather, she was planting her lips on another girl’s on the spider bars. Phil can still feel the mulch on the side of his face and the sting of his hands from both the cold and the velocity of the throw. But what had blown his mind the most was that, as the air from his mouth turned to vapor and young Phil tightened the scarf around his neck, that girls could like girls the way they liked boys, and that perhaps boys could like boys just the same. He watched the girls, hand in hand, skip their plaid skirted and bandaged legs through the playground and to where the teacher was assembling a queue of students. The memory brought a haunting chill, and Phil slides the box of cereal to the back of the shelf, suddenly not hungry. The tile was starting to chip beneath the metal shelves of food. 

Phil knows himself, and his own self would be pissed at Dan for taking the house, and his own self would also listen to the beating of his heart and know that he should try to ignore the stranger and shove any form of attraction down into the pits of his stomach, which was still growling, despite Phil’s discomfort. 

“I can show you around the guest house, if you want,” Phil decides, jutting his head out from the pantry door. Seems considerate enough to his new neighbor, although he was hoping for a declined invitation. People weren’t Phil’s neck of the woods most times. But Dan accepts, and he tucks the wooden chair back under the little table. “If you want,” He quips, fully stretching his back and revealing a tiny bit of torso. Feeling foolish, Phil immediately turns and opens the french doors by the table and is hit by a blast of cold air and a further scent of earth, remnants from the rain last night. Dan follows him to the porch and Phil detects a strange scent of mint and laundry detergent wafting off of him. 

“So, over there is the guest house,” He directs to the smaller scale replica of the Lester’s house in the corner of the yard, “And it's connected to the driveway in case you need to drive or something,” 

“This is the garden,” He says them. He stays silent and scans the property, maintaining a neutral expression. “And right back there is the guesthouse, have you unpacked yet?” Phil points to the white ranch tucked away in the spindling trees. 

“My stuff is in there, but no, it's not unpacked,” 

“I can help you unpack, how many boxes are there?” 

“Seventeen.” 

A heavy packer, if he truly was staying the entire summer, Phil thinks, leading the tenant to the house. It must’ve rained last night; the ground is damp and muddy. Clouds as well; he recalls not being able to see any stars the previous night and breaking his tradition by wasting his year’s wishes on a plastic snowman. Phil fumbles with the set of keys in his hands when he reaches the red door (a pop of colour on the unpigmented house) and finally opens it, releasing a scent of musk and brisk air. Alas, the Lesters had been neglecting the guesthouse since the last tenant left. The inside of the ranch is very low-ceilinged, the entry hallway very narrow, contrasting to the grand foyer the main house had. Dan follows Phil inside comfortably, making Phil realize Dan must’ve already been given some kind of tour. The off-white carpeting was worn, pairing with the slow, heartbeat tick of the grandfather clock gives the house a grandmotherly feeling and a smell of mothballs. The last tenant, Phil remembers, was the old woman whom he’d never learnt the name of. The house is still tidy, though. 

Dan’s boxes and luggage stack in the corner of the foyer, against the burgundy wallpapers. While the style of the house is outdated, Phil can’t help but feel scammed out of his shot at his own place. 

“I’ll carry my luggage to the bedroom,” Dan opts, thrusting two boxes atop his knee and under his chin. “Can you grab my duffel, there?” He asks, gesturing towards the brown canvas bag in the corner of the hallway. 

Phil follows Dan into the bedroom, duffel and smaller bag in hand. From what Phil had seen, Dan didn’t seem like the kind of boy who would make himself at home anywhere, judging from the stiff way he presented himself and the untouched objects in the bedroom collecting dust. Phil wonders if Dan was a wallflower in high school, like he. He thinks, pushing the bags towards the foot of the bed. The bedroom was all earthy tones, just like Dan, beige comforters, maroon pillows, a tan dresser and matching desk under the billowy mustard curtains. Of course the burgundy walls had traveled alongside the ugly cream carpeting. Everything was neat and proper but a thin layer of dust lined every surface. 

“I’ll have to do some cleaning this afternoon,” Dan concludes, hands on his waist. 

“I can help you,” Phil offers, perhaps a bit too eagerly. 

“If you want to,” Dan says, seeming suspicious, his eyes outlining every centimeter of Phil’s frame. “I thought you would be busy,”

As if I would be, Phil thinks, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I think I can find some time,” 

 

Dan smiles for a moment and gingerly opens one the boxes, bringing forth a small fit of dust. Inside, from what Phil was able to see, there’s a pair of white-washed jeans, a big gray mass of fabric, and a dilapidated shoebox. 

“Who puts a box inside a box?” Phil laughs, taking the gray matter out of the box; it was a sweatshirt. Dan only shrugs, and Phil makes his mouth into a line, going silent. He shouldn’t be offended, Dan seemed like one of few words, anyway. He opens a window behind him, a gust of warm wind rustling the curtains. Dan zips open his duffel and puts a potted sunflower on the windowsill, next to it would come a bottle of pills, but that was for later. Later, Phil would also learn that boys that like sunflowers and pills don’t fuse well with boys who like snow globes and wishing instead. 

+

“Sorry about the mess,” Phil gushes (he can’t stop talking) as they finally finish sweeping down the guesthouse. Dan didn’t say much, to Phil’s disappointment. He did learn, however, that Dan is 19, a Gemini, and very very strange. 

In the sense of clothes, Dan packed only a few pairs of jeans, the big, gray, sweatshirt and black tops that all look the same. They smelled like bleach, as did the whole house, and the underneath of Phil’s nails from monotonous cleaning, scrubbing, and more cleaning. But what Dan did bring was a dilapidated box of scratched records, each of which dated or unfamiliar. Phil feels bad for pawing through the box, but Dan is in the bathroom, leaving Phil alone for a few seconds. Herb Alpert. Janet Jackson. Skinny Love- Birdy. Some of the records were shiny and new, others look as if they could turn to dust under Phil’s touch. Sticky, peeling, labels, unreadable on the center of the records. 

“You’re a writer, right?” Dan asks from the corner of the room, having finished in the bathroom. Hands immediately flying from the records, Phil bashfully explains that he’s a creative writing and journalism major, not really a writer. 

“I saw you found my vinyls,” He adds, leaning in the doorway of the bathroom. He isn’t necessarily smiling, but he sounds lighthearted and easy, like like if a heartbeat had a sound. “Most of them don’t even work anymore,” He averts his eyes with a wistful gaze to the box. 

“I don’t even have a player anymore, I don’t know why I brought them,” 

Phil nods, embarrassed and unsure of what to say. He tries not to take notice of the tiny bits of his hair turned east on his forehead. Phil could tell Dan had tried to straighten it this morning. 

“They’re kinda like journals, I guess,” He lastly adds, quietly. “Like how you write things down, I listen to them,” Phil couldn’t find the connection, but Dan must; his eyes were cloudy with wist and happiness when he looks at his records on the tiny white dressing table. They must mean a great deal to Dan, Phil notes, wondering why an old, heavy box of records could make Dan’s eyes light up that way after being so dull the past few hours. 

The sun was setting the sky into a pleasant indigo and orange. The house’s musty smell has been replaced with a lemony odor. 

“Do you want to get dinner, or something?” Phil offers, his knees starting to burn from being dig into the carpet for so long. His fingers stung with cleaning supplies and the sound of vacuum has been in his ears all afternoon. Apart from the record debacle, Dan and Phil barely talked at all during their cleaning spree. But Phil did learn that Dan: 

-Has four potted sunflowers.  
-His kitchen cabinets were mostly bare, apart from voluminous bottles of orange, at least eight. It didn’t seem worrisome.  
-He’s very passionate, and you need to talk to him to get him to do the smile with his eyes that way.  
-He has definitely loved before, and as strange as it must sound, Phil can sense a broken heart when he sees one; he can hear it too; the way Dan tends to his sunflowers, in the way he pages through his records like they mean something to him apart from being pieces of plastic indistinguishable from the next. Dan’s monachopsis demeanor; a black sheep without a partner, it seemed. 

For hearts, to Phil, are made of glass, and Dan never picked up his pieces. In fact, Dan is made of stained glass, like a church window, radiating sunlight from a frown, a crack in the glass. Soft. 

On the contrast, Phil is made of jagged pieces, sharp features, a prominent nose, a crooked smile. Blue. 

 

The two boys sit across from each other at a circular table in an uncongested diner. Phil notices that Dan taps his fingers a lot on the table and smiles to himself. He can’t help but keep the thought of Dan dating someone in the back of his mind like a bad penny. Phil’s only known Dan for a day and he already cannot stop thinking about him, surprisingly out of character for Phil. He could be a serial killer, for all he knows.

A waitress with a stained, off-white apron and bearing a name tag, Darla, approaches the table and takes their orders, Phil takes a hamburger, Dan a chocolate milkshake. The waitress purses her pink lips. Her shoulder length, black and greasy curls kept sticking to her forehead. Dan nor Phil could understand why this middle aged woman was examining them so, even after she has taken the order and placed the ice waters on the table, and Dan begins to drum his fingers on the table, uncomfortable. 

“Do I know you?” She asks Dan, in a strong, Southern-English drawl. 

Eyes widening, Dan shakes his head no, but the woman was set on realizing where she knew Dan from, if she did. 

She remains at their table for a few more minutes, and even Phil’s getting irritated. 

“Yes, I do!” She finally exclaims, a gesture of proudness protruding towards Dan. Then her grin becomes a flat line, and Dan seems to be quivering. “I knew it was you,” She turns on her heel and returns to the kitchen. 

Dan presses his fingertips to his temples and pretends to be invested in the menu she did not collect. 

“Did you really know her?” Phil asks, an elderly couple slowly walking towards the table across from them on the checkered floor. 

“She was my… boyfriend’s neighbor,” Dan says, almost into his hands, it was so muffled. He keeps covering his mouth after the last half of the sentence slips out, eyes averted to the window’s drab sky and fluorescent reflection. But Phil only widens his eyes slightly, in a suprised sense, and nods. 

“Are you still seeing him?” Phil inquires nonchalantly, toying with the papery napkin on the table. 

“No,” 

So Phil was right earlier, and by the way Dan seemed embarrassed by it- apart from the whole boyfriend aspect, it must’ve been a rough breakup. Maybe his ability to read people is overshadowing any people skills Phil might posses. 

“I see,” He replies quietly, copying Dan and looking out the rectangular window. Above the parking lot sat a duller sky, only purple and gray. Cloudy. The clouds in the distance were soft and blue. 

Maybe not that dull. 

“Holy fuck,” Dan mumbles, setting his phone onto the table and cradling his head in his hands. 

Phil’s tempted to ask why Dan’s acting this way, but he remembers he’s known Dan for hours, not years. So, instead, he takes a long, slow, sip of his water.

“Phil?” 

Phil puts the water back on its damp ring it's left on the napkin and raises his brows. Awkwardness still lingered in the air like a scent after the encounter with the waiter, and Phil wants to help, but he doesn’t even know Dan’s middle name. 

His eyes pleading, Dan adds: “I know we haven’t known each other long at all, but my boyfriend knows I’m here,” 

Phil swallows nervously, the sky behind Dan almost dissolving into an obsolete black. 

“I need you to kiss me,”  
“What?” 

“My… ex, whatever, has a boyfriend now and he probably will hear that I’m here and alone after I broke his heart- and I can’t manage being alone because I can still see his face and hear his voice and-” 

He’s rambling a frantic spew of words, and all Phil can think about is kissing Dan, even if it is a dumb trope from a heartbreaker, not one of the heartbroken. His eyes are marvelous, even when they’re anxious, sometimes they’re like the dirt under your nails but now they’re like the bottom of the lake Phil swam in when he was younger, they’re muddy and they’re dark but there’s something there that makes you want to dive deeper and deeper, until you realize that reaching the bottom is inevitable and you wish you could keep diving. That’s what Dan’s eyes are; they’re colorless and beautiful. 

“Just for tonight, I promise I’ll leave you alone for the rest of summer,” 

Yeah, it’ll be fine. Phil nods, and he can tell Dan feels bad. Holy shit, they’re about to kiss. And it should be Phil’s first, if a lackluster smooch during Spin the Bottle didn’t count. But it’ll be Dan’s tenth, hundredth, kiss and it still won’t mean anything, but will it still go into the jar of kisses Dan must be carrying? Or is it real, because, to Phil, it could be, it might be. 

Phil tries not to get worked up about the kiss, after all, it's just a kiss, from a boy in a diner on a Thursday. There’s nothing special here that might signify that something could happen, like magic, lighting, a hail mary; a soulmate. Perhaps Dan is anticipating it too; his nails are digging into the menu like a lifeline. 

The waitress travels back to the table with a smug demeanor, setting down the thickest, pinkest milkshake either of them have ever seen and a greasy, floppy burger. Neither of the boys’ appetites sparked, Dan bounces his leg, as if waiting for a moment to make it known that Phil was his. Well, he wasn’t, but he could be, just for tonight. 

“Peter says hello,” She says in a sly tone of voice, finally collecting the menus as slow as humanly possible. Dan doesn’t reply, but he frowns, widening his eyes towards Phil. Phil’s heart starts to hammer and he tries to focus on Dan’s eyes again, think of the lake, calm. The table was small and round, and Dan was tall enough to reach over the table anyways. He leans in and gently curls his palm around Phil’s neck, their faces centimeters apart. And Phil closes the gap, squeezes his eyes shut, and presses his lips to Dan’s. And something does happen, but it's not magic, lightning, or even a hail mary. It’s something else, something marvelous, a word neither Phil nor Dan can find, but there’s something there, and when their lips detach, all Phil can think of is how homey the kiss felt, the warmth radiating off of Dan like sunlight. It was so strange that a boy who seems to collect hearts like daisies would be so gentle like he was. The waitress only raises a brow before leaving the two with the food and a check. 

Dan is smiling now, the kind of smile with a protrusive bottom lip, like you’re trying not to laugh. 

“Thank you, Phil, I’m sorry about that,” 

“It’s fine,” 

Dan takes a sip of his milkshake and Phil stares at his burger. As any eye would see they were average, two boys eating dinner in a ramshackle diner when, in reality, both of their hearts were on fire. 

The car ride home was silent, and Dan hadn’t said a word. His head bumped against the passenger seat window as his eyes droop, a wistful smile on his lips. Phil couldn’t help but smile too, as the sky completely transitions to blackness. Soon, Dan is asleep in the passenger seat as the two of them travel up and down and up and down the windy hills of the town, and Phil thinks about kissing Dan again. But Dan isn’t. He's dreaming. 

A day passes and Dan and Phil hardly acknowledge each other. Phil stays in his bedroom, scrapping every idea for HAPPINESS he has. He considers telling Pj about the kiss, and about Dan. And when Pj’s name appears on Phil’s phone, Phil lets it ring. Phil can’t imagine the kiss not meaning anything to Dan, but he also can’t imagine Dan being his boyfriend. or whatever. 

Dan, on the other hand, is thinking about how long you have to know someone to be in love. 

It’s Sunday night, and Pj’s name has appeared in Phil’s phone so many times, almost as much as the kiss lept re-entering the boys’ lives. Phil tries to get over it throughout the weekend, realizing that a kiss is just two humans smashing their lips together. But it feels like the most beautiful thing in the world and at night there’s two boys lying in their beds, thinking: I kissed him. I kissed him and I felt something. It was just a kiss. 

Dan keeps to himself for a few days, settling into his new home. Phil’s father hasn’t come home. Phil and Pj have been skyping for a few hours and Phil wants to tell him about Dan so badly. Pj tells Phil he’s actually coming to visit over the summer, and Phil can’t wait for Pj to meet Dan; they’d get along famously. 

Sometimes, Phil peeks out of the curtains of his bedroom window and sees Dan either in the yard or on the porch, and once Dan meets his gaze with a swish of the curtains. It's time to talk to him, I think. 

By the time Phil makes it to the guesthouse, it's already rained twice and he’s gotten two pages down on his HAPPINESS memoir about his first dog; it doesn’t hold much depth. He steps over a puddle in the sun dappled garden, arms heavy with anticipation. He hadn’t rehearsed what to say, he doesn’t even know how to put his feelings into words. They hadn’t talked in four days, and the last time they talked, they kissed. And Dan didn’t really taste like anything, not the way every romance novel had described the exhilaration of a kiss. Of course there had been a feeling, a feeling that welled deep inside Phil’s gut like flames licking the sides of a burning house. It was a good feeling, now that Phil thinks about it, it was more like a bolt of lighting in his stomach, whilst the kiss itself was empty. It’s just a weird feeling. 

Phil grasps his abdomen as he pauses just outside the door. Maybe I’m just dumb. But I kind of like you… That’s stupid. Get to know him first, dumbass. He could have herpes or something for all you know. 

Gulping, Phil knocks on the door gingerly, then immediately pulls back, afraid of looking too eager. A few moments and shuffling later, the door opens, revealing a haphazardly dressed Dan in sweatpants and a taut white t shirt. He looks like he’s been thinking too, perhaps even more than Phil has. 

Dan scratches the back of his neck. “I was about to call you, actually,” Phil only nods shyly in response, wishing he would have just waited for the call rather than approaching him like this. 

“Want to come in?”

Dan has made the guesthouse his home already, water bottles and cups littered the coffee table, and a scent of tea permeated the air. The carpet is pressed in the shape of footprints and a tiny sunflower pot has made his home in the foyer. Phil knows the layout of the guesthouse, as he was intending on living there this summer, but he follows Dan through the narrow hallway to the bedroom, which had also become a home. The once standard room has become a whirlwind of blue sticky notes, vinyls, empty water bottles, soil sprinkled from the potted plants, and blankets and clothes all on the carpet. He doesn’t necessarily look ashamed or apologetic for the mess. He sits on the edge of the bed, claps his hands between his lower thighs. The frilly comforter of the bed prior to Dan’s arrival was replaced by a solid gray quilt. Phil takes the rounded chair in adjacent to the bed. “I just wanted to know more about you,” He says, twisting his lips and staring at the popcorn ceiling, then the floor, then the window just behind Dan. 

“I’m from Berkshire,” He replies, his left hand resting upon his leg. “I’m nineteen and I have no idea what I’m doing with my life, but my parents suddenly think they know where it’s going,” He says this with a smile, but Phil senses pent-up rage bound behind the grin. “They actually sent me here to fix me because they think, well they know, and I know you know that I’m…” His voice trails off, as if saying the word would attract his family. Gay? Bisexual? Into men? “Gay, I guess.”

“So they thought I was going to this summer school of reform,” He continues, and Phil shifts in his seat, wondering what kind of parents would grasp onto their child’s life like that, like some kind of backseat driver. He couldn’t imagine his parents caring much about who Phil was with, as if they cared enough anyway. “I came home one day and saw, on the kitchen counter, a pamphlet: Your Child is Probably Gay, you’re Screwed: How to Force Heterosexuality Upon Your Son and I just got a sinking feeling inside me like everything was draining. I don’t know, maybe it really wasn’t a huge deal, maybe it wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t confronted them about it or overheard them talking to my aunt about my boyfriend, ex boyfriend, and how I was too young to be knowing this even though I’m a goddamn adult, and the next morning they drove me out here, and dropped me like a piece of meat, not their son. And I guess I ditched and ended up here,” 

Phil keeps listening. 

“My father told me that if I came back without a woman in my arm he’d put me in the ground with a bullet in my skull.” 

Judging from Phil’s wide eyed expression, he buries his head in his hands, sighing. “You probably didn’t need to know all that,” 

“It’s okay,” Phil murmurs, wondering if he should reach out and comfort Dan, who looked ashamed. “Maybe we could start with your favorite colour.” 

“Green,”

“Like grass green or neon green?"

Dan shrugs and shifts in his stance on the couch. "Like Aqua, I guess," The closest example Dan could find was comparing his favourite colour to Phil's eyes. God, they were magnificent and Dan could hardly describe them. Everything Phil did and had suits him perfectly. The name Phil just oozes soft blues and greens, whilst Dan's was red and orange and highlighted with yellow. For the first time, Dan starts to think about Phil in the abstract, while he talks about his favourite colour and his favourite animals and dreams and suddenly it's like what Dan has been avoiding has found him again; love. It's a sickly feeling, sweet and sour and sticky and rotten, but joyful and light and soft all at the same time, like a rollercoaster. Dan could listen to Phil talk all day and he's thinking the same time all the while Phil's speaking: 

My favorite eyes are your eyes, My favourite song is your song, My favourite words are the words that come out of your mouth. 

Dan hasn't known a lot of people in his lifetime, at least not enough to make his autobiography, but Phil is different. He's wonderful and he didn't kiss like Peter did. He is beautiful in every way, and Dan could feel it in his chest when he looks at him. It's like his rib cage clenches when he sees him. It's strange. Maybe Dan's just weird too. Loves weird, he decides. If this even is love. If this isn’t just about avenging his last relationship. 

"Sorry about the thing with your parents," Phil finishes his ramble, peering sadly into Dan's eyes. 

"It's okay," Dan replies, doing something he didn't do often: opened his arms, inviting Phil in for a hug. He knows being wrapped in Phil's warm embrace could practically fix everything and everyone, and it did for a while. Phil wraps his arms atop Dan's shoulders and squeezes. The hug holds a newfound awkwardness, and Phil fears that Dan’s instant oversharing has put up a wall between them. 

Dan can’t reply because he keeps staring at Phil. He can’t stop looking at the beautiful way Phil shudders when he moves, like a flip animation, slowly and shakily he sets his hand on Dan’s back and pats it again, like he wants to show some kind of affection. Dan’s scared, and maybe Phil is too. 

It’s a big world out there. Just the phrase made Phil’s skin writhe and his fingers tremble; the realization came upon his shoulders that the world isn’t just a tiny town and a ramshackle, off the map restaurant and a little crush and a kiss. They’re both absolutely terrified of the world outside and both of them had seen so little, from what they knew. Maybe there’s other people out there, people who are looking for someone who is them, but they’d only known what they’d been shown: boys love girls and girls love boys. Boy meets girl. Maybe, Phil thinks with a tingle, that boys can love boys the way girls do, and girls like girls like boys do. And Phil knows there’s nothing wrong with that, he never thought that until he became one, one of the people he saw on the news found dead with the word FAG carved into their stomach, and it fills his mouth with a powerful distaste. Maybe if he’d never met Dan this wouldn’t happen. 

 

You wouldn’t be this happy, he says to himself, or this confused, his conscience adds bitterly. A kiss will always be just a kiss, a feeling is just a feeling and boys are boys and girls are girls. Perhaps if feelings were just thoughts and thoughts were just emotions and love is just a thought, maybe love is just a construct that no one thinks to truly depict, love isn’t really butterflies in your stomach or warm, fluffy hugs from everything he’s known. Love is dangerous and it's a thought that kills you, a concept that can either be cherished and preserved or stomped upon like a fly if it's with the wrong person. He couldn’t get the image of Dan being shot by his own father and falling to the ground, all for a concept, a feeling that doesn’t exist. Tangles of smiles and kisses become knots of guns and signs and yelling and hatred and tears and ripping apart like a piece of fabric. 

“Really, it’ll be okay,” Dan is grinning but his eyes are not. “I’ll be okay, Phil, I’m sorry I told you all this,” Dan feels bad, like he’s just read a toddler a ghost story. “I mean, I probably won’t go home this year anyway,” 

“Where will you go?” Phil asks, agape, with a concerned glimmer in his eyes. 

“I’ll be fine, I’ll get a job get out of your hai-” 

Phil slams his lips onto Dan’s with a cushioned force, but enough to be able to feel Dan’s teeth through his skin. It feels almost the way it did before, but this time their noses didn’t hit each other and Phil’s glasses didn’t slide down the bridge of his nose. Dan finds himself laughing for the first time that afternoon, before wrapping his hands around Phil’s neck and back. His hair is soft and standing on end. Dan’s hair is stiff, Phil notes, like dead grass in the back, and like a cloud at the top, fluffy and saturated. It was strange, for Phil, to have someone else's’ skin against his. 

The kiss was long and steady, the entire time Phil could hear his own heart pulsating in his ears like a snare drum. He peeks his eyes open after a few seconds have passed and pulls away, seating himself on the quilt, catching his breath and keeping time with his pulse to keep him sane. 

“Holy shit,”

“Holy shit.”

They bursts into fits of subdued laughter, Dan gripping his sides as he lays against the headboard, staring at the ceiling. He wants to ask if Phil likes him or if he just kissed him in the uncertainty and fear and spite of the moment, but he refuses to allow the unfairness to overtake him tonight, rather, he leans forward and places his hands on Phil’s hips and pulls him closely again, and for once, the image of his father has evaporated from his mind, replaced by the thrill of the kiss and Phil’s smile and their clumsy noses shoving past each other. For once, he isn’t thinking about Peter’s bright green eyes or mess of curls, he’s thinking about the way Phil is hesitant to place his hands on Dan’s torso. In the midst of all the kissing and messy hair and heavy breathing, Phil’s phone chimes many times, but he never opens the messages. Dan’s fingers slip under the collar of Phil’s t shirt questioningly, and he obliges breathlessly. Phil’s hands move gracefully towards Dan’s defined collarbone, but he pauses, his eyes locking on Dan’s left thigh. Almost shamefully, Dan’s own eyes stare at his affliction, but Phil pushes his face into his neck and whispers, I think it’s beautiful. The afternoon is ending and the bedroom of the guesthouse starts to darken.  
The next day comes all too suddenly, a pesky woodpecker gnawing at the shutters of the room. Phil’s eyes snap open- this isn’t my room. But then the whole night comes back to him like a train hit him, and he goes pink. Underneath the slew of sheets, Dan snores quietly, and Phil tucks his head back on top of his neck. 

Dan murmurs sleepily something incoherent, sending his bare arm back over Phil protectively. It's okay.

+

The rest of the summer blurred and faded into a beautiful knot of bug bites and sundaes and kisses, which lead to making out in the guesthouse, which lead to slurred laughter in Phil’s parents conservatory, when they could hardly manage to get each other’s shirts off before erupting into another slew of smiles, the kind that make your ribs hurt and your torso muscles tighten. Phil deletes everything he’s written about his dog and his family and writes about Dan instead. He rereads it and Dan says it's great, but it seems distant and fluffy, like a fantasy world through a screen of clouds. He likes it, he supposes. The one flaw in Dan and Phil’s new relationship was the lingering end of summer, in which Dan would return to what seems like a nightmare. Once he asks if Dan will be okay when he returns home, and Dan only replies with a soft kiss on Phil’s forehead, the kind of kiss in which the giver closes their eyes, not with love, but with fear. Phil wonders if he should be afraid again too.

One memory that Dan holds from that summer, although it's faded and blurry like a bad polaroid, being on the beach with Phil, just as the sun was beginning to set, casting everything around them in an orange light. Phil picks up a rock and throws it. It lands with a ker-plunk in the dark water before them, frothing against the rocks. When Phil was younger, he and his long-since-forgotten friends would perch upon the sharp rocks and watch the silvery fish dart about in the sea. Together they sit on the big, flat rock that cuts out over the waves, both flinging stones into the distance. 

“I could see myself living by the sea in the future,” Phil says. 

“So could I,” Dan agrees, imagining life away from the hustle and bustle of the city, a place with Phil and only Phil, where his family never could reach him again. It seems like a dream. 

Phil gets thicker glasses, his sight begins to be littered with random lesions. He stops driving, but doesn’t tell Dan or his mother about the lesions. His father promises to be back in August. Dan’s almost 20 years old. July was an intermission for Dan and Phil, and it reminds Dan of the time he saw Into The Woods and all the strings tied together nicely, into the intermission, until the second half came, and everything, everything, and everything else went to hell and back. 

+

Hiding a relationship is harder than Phil expected. 

Usually, for dinner, Dan would cook with whatever he would buy (usually: rubbery easy-mac) and Phil would rarely stay at his house for dinner or, as usual, go eat undercooked cup noodles with Dan in a shitty kitchenette rather than some highly prepped, expensive meal with his mother at the far nicer mansion. While Dan was slaving over a generic-brand frozen pizza, Phil had just ducked out of an awkward dinner with his mother. Through the sliding glass back door, across from the foyer, Phil slips in, walking into the brightly lit kitchen where Dan was burning his fingertips on a hot pizza. Oven gloves, not dishrags, are what he needed. 

“Hi honey, I’m home,” Phil says in a mocking tone, holding Dan’s hips from behind and kissing his cheek. 

“I’m not your honey, and this isn’t the sixties. Get up and grab some plates,” Dan laughs as Phil gets up from the tiny oak table with an exaggerated groan. 

“My mum is starting to wonder why I come over so much,” Phil says as a matter-of-factly while Dan slices the pizza. He cocks an eyebrow at his boyfriend’s cutlery and smiles. 

“We can use the good china,” Dan jokes, taking the paper plates out of his grasp. “What about your mum?”

“She’s curious,” 

“Did you tell her we were just hanging out?”

“Yes,” Phil pauses. “Dan, I think we should come out,”

Dan almost drops the pizza cutter. He stares at Phil, incredulous. “Are you insane?”

Phil only shrugs. 

“Oh my God, Phil, do you know what will happen to me? What about you?” He puts down the cutter and faces Phil. “Would if your mum doesn’t approve?”

“She will, don’t worry about it,” Phil murmurs, not looking at Dan and rummaging the cupboards for napkins. 

“What about me, Phil? How will my father react?” Dan’s mouth is open slightly, amazed at Phil’s ignorance. 

“You didn’t seem to have a problem flaunting your ex around,” He scoffs to himself, shutting the door to the Lazy Susan cabinet. 

“Are you kidding me, Phil? You had to bring him up?” 

They know they sound like a dumb married couple arguing, but that was a low blow of Phil. All Dan could think back to was Peter’s ultimatum; either they come out or they aren’t together at all. At first it was making sense; hiding a relationship in such a tightly knit city was just too hard. Dan can still feel the perspiration sticking his fingers together when he told his family. The next week, Dan was sent off with a stern, If you don’t come back with a woman on your arm, I’ll put a bullet in your head. Dan shivers. His father would never kill him, he knows this. But the idea still haunts him. “Just leave,” He says, a tear protruding from his eye. A look of regret flickers across Phil’s face, but is soon replaced with a face of anger and resentment. Unable to think, Phil turns just as he reaches the doorway. He whispers something incoherent and ducks out of the guesthouse in a huff. Dan has never seen Phil that upset, but, to be fair, it was more reasonable for Dan to be upset about the debacle. Thus was marked their first fight, which was later resolved by a ringing in Dan’s bedroom. He doesn’t answer, he’s eating a burnt and poorly cut frozen pizza by himself. 

Hey its Phil. I just- um, wanted to call and, uh, say that what I said was… inappropriate and I’m really sorry, Dan. I love you so much. Bye. 

Dan listens to it about an hour after Phl sends it, and he rolls his eyes and finds himself grinning.  
The Lesters nor Pj ever became aware of Phil’s and Dan’s love for eachother that summer. Pj did not visit that summer, for he had a boyfriend of his own, and they were getting far more serious than the boys that giggled in the back of one’s parent’s study whilst pawing off each other’s clothes. They were like teenagers again, forgetting about their stress by having each other, loving each other, caring for each other. Seriousness still was alive in their lives alike; Dan sometimes couldn’t shake the spit flinging from his father’s mouth as he sent him away with only what he could carry and a bit more. In fact, it’s Dan’s idea that they keep it a secret, out of fear of a repetition of what his father had done to him, happening to Phil. He just couldn’t handle it. Dan’s sister calls him one day and asks him if he’s coming home for his birthday. Dan pauses before he replies, and just relishes in the familiar pattern of his sister’s calm, easy breathing on the other line. His sister always was kind to him, although oblivious of their father’s apparent threatening of his son a few months ago. 

If Dan was being completely honest, his birthday had completely slipped his mind. “I don’t think so,” He says, as if he had actually been thinking about it. 

“You don’t seem like the kind of person to think about it anyway,” She grumbles. “Its like you don’t even care about your family anymore, Dan,”

Dan groans, massages his temples, and replies, “I do care, Aideen, it’s just that I can’t come home,” 

“Why not?” She sounded like a toddler who had gotten a toy taken away. 

Dan couldn’t reply. His sister had been oblivious to Peter, so what would insure that she wouldn’t freak out over Phil? Or worse, tell his father? 

“I got a girlfriend,” Dan lies. 

Aideen sounds skeptical, but after a few more minutes of talking about nothing, she hangs up first and seems to forget about Dan not returning for his birthday. 

Phil’s father becomes a sensitive subject. Phil’s sister and his father did not plan to return at all during the summer, but in autumn he intended to come home with Phil’s sister. Dan didn’t ask Phil about his father nor his sister, but at one Sunday night dinner, in which Mrs. Lester obliged that Dan come along also, Dan hears all he needs to know. 

“Am I supposed to be this nervous?” Dan asks, scrunching his lips into a thin line. 

“Probably not,” Phil replies, snaking his arms around Dan’s waist and resting his head on his shoulder, squinting at his own appearance in the mirror. “It’s not like she knows,” 

Dan nods, tugging on his jumper’s hem tremulously. It was an olive green cable-knit jumper with a tiny hole in the right sleeve right over Dan’s thumb. He likes to stretch his sleeves over his hands and arms like paws, Phil’s noticed. He’s just so cute, Phil sighs to Pj one night, followed by a scoff and a what profound wordplay from such an aspiring author. Of course Pj hadn’t been told who Dan was, the phrase was crammed into the 4am ramblings they shared over Skype. 

When it came time for the three of them to sit at the table, Dan avoids Phil like a disease. 

“So, Dan, tell me; what are you currently doing in school?” Phil’s mother asks, prior to taking a bite of her steak. Phil, across the table is moving pieces of the meat around his plate with his fork, the porcelain squeaking. Dan’s stomach flips over. 

“I’m on a gap year, actually,” He says, once more lying straight through his teeth, trying to divert his gaze from the bloody meat on his plate. 

“Interesting!” She quips, taking another bite, staring into Dan’s eyes with a great intensity. “What do you do on a gap year?” 

Dan takes a long, slow sip of his water, but it tastes like antiseptic. “Usually, it's just a time to work and get prepared for school,” 

“My son should take a gap year,” Replies Phil’s mother abruptly, pulling a stray piece of graying hair behind her ear, talking about her son like he wasn’t sitting just adjacent to her. “He’s always so stressed out,” She groans, as if the stress were a burden to her. Phil crosses and uncrosses his legs, unsure of whether or not to intervene. “Of course, he’s doing well, but, I mean, I worry sometimes what with his father and-”

“Mum.” Phil’s lips are a white line, and his eyes are cloudy with contempt. 

“Phil, you do know that I just care about you,” She says stubbornly. “We really shouldn’t talk about… your father right now,” 

Phil sets his fork and knife back on the plate. Dan’s trying to find the pattern of the fabrics in the tablecloth. It’s hard to breathe in this house, he thinks. “Don’t treat me like a six year old, again, don’t act like I don’t know,” He says harshly, raising his voice to a volume Dan has never heard before. Dan chews on the cuff of his sweater, a bad habit, he knows. 

“I cannot believe you still act like this; we have a guest!” She says, smoothing out her hair, appearing to be the more collected one in the feud. 

Dan chews harder on his sleeve until pea-green threads pop loose and get caught in his teeth. 

Phil is unable to reply and takes the back of his fork and slowly presses the peas into a paste the colour of Dan’s jumper. “Don’t act like I don’t know anything,” He murmurs. With that, he leaves the fork in a pile of the mush and pushes his chair in in a huff, opposed to his mother’s apologies and calls to return. 

 

“Excuse me as well,” Dan opts as he’s already out of his chair and bounding after Phil, leaving Phil’s mother and the disaster of a dinner in her midst. 

+

Phil Lester wants to punch a wall. The more he thought about it, the more reasonable it became. He wanted to slam his knuckles into the wall until the first colour of the rainbow stained his skin. He’d never punched a wall before. But Phil Lester wanted to. 

He was so stupid, so upsetting to his own father- Phil massages his knuckles, recalling that he’d never once thrown a punch, he’d probably wind up breaking his wrist or something. Maybe your mum would leave, too, then, his subconscious cackled, conjuring the anger channeled into Phil’s right hand. He could punch, but would it make him feel any better? The wall before him of his bedroom was a pastel green almost reflected his glower tauntingly. 

“Phil? Are you in here?” There’s a tiny rat-a-tat at the door, and Phil relaxes his taut muscles. 

“Dan?”

“Yeah.”

“Come in,” 

Phil didn’t know what to do, standing before a wall in a dark room when all he wanted to do was scream. The anger and hatred began to boil in his stomach like the volcano he’d made out of Model Magic when he was seven (4th place.) but this would be far more explosive, he decides, until he feels a hand on his shoulder, the familiar warmth radiating off of it's reach; a faint scent of cologne mixed with an old, calmly rustic fragrance. 

“Are you okay?”

It was those three words that skyrocketed Phil into the explosion he’s been so intently thinking about, but he didn’t punch anything, although perhaps that would have been less embarrassing. Rather, he feels tears sting the corners of his eyes, and the rom starts to blur. He falls into Dan’s embrace and, if he’s being honest, Dan’s a bit taken aback, but holds Phil as tightly as he needs.

“My dad left be-because of me,” Phil shakes, Dan still pandering to his quaking.  
“I’m sure he didn’t,” Dan says, thinking back to every film he’d ever seen in which the child felt responsible for their asshole parents. 

“No it is,” Phil says, staring up at Dan intensely. “He left because he couldn’t bear to see,”

“See what?”

“Dan?”

“Yeah?”

“Dan,” Phil swallows, and his eyes go rimmed with red like a cracked mirror. “I’m going blind.”

An intolerable silence fell over the room, replaced soon by Phil’s incoherent sobbing and Dan’s absolute shock. 

“You’re going blind?”

“I wanted to tell you but I didn’t know how,” Phil says, moving himself to the edge of his bed. “It’s unfair, I know, I’m sorry-”

“No, it’s fine,” Dan surprises himself. His expression is ashen, but his words are kindhearted. “I’m sorry, Phil,” He didn’t know whether or not to be shaken by the news or enraged at Phil’s father. 

“I’m supposed to be fully blind by age 20,” He explains, still trembling. He can still remember vividly the scent of chemicals and antiseptic the hospital had carried when he was only 12 years old. His vision had been declining rapidly, and he had the thickest glasses in the grade. His parents grew concerned, took him to the doctor, surgeries were to be had. Something about melanoma, but all Phil knew was that it hurt like hell after the surgeries. Papery sheets, eye patches, strangers. He’d been able to repress the memory of being told that in 8 years he’d lose his sight entirely, but now that he was 19, the thought crept back to his mind like a bad penny. His father had been in and out of Phil’s life like most, but Phil knew that he would not be returning to his blinded son. It was embarrassing. Fuck, Phil thinks. The urge to punch escalates. 

Dan expected tears, yelling, anything, everything he’s known; leaving, staring, drifting. But Dan only lies on Phil’s bed, staring at the ceiling. He pats the soft, blue comforter next to him and Phil lies with him, still being shaking with every breath. Dan takes Phil’s arm and puts it on his chest, his fingers gently tapping his forearm. Phil takes a breath, and another. The rage begins to succumb and turn into a beautiful silence, replaced only with the quiet beat of his heart, like a watch enveloped in cotton. Dan remembers one of his more dilapidated albums and recalls the lyrics on the back of the cover. Take me back to the basics and the simple life, tell me all of the things that make you feel at ease. Now I’m down to my skin and bones, my baby listens to me on the phone, but I feel alone, alone. Dan wills himself to share every fond memory of Phil, the pinkness of his oh-too-thick milkshake from when they first kissed, the yellow of Dan’s sunflowers which had died of thirst. The sea. Remember, Phil? The sea. Phil’s breathing regulates, but he says nothing. Out of the corner of his eye, Phil spots the plastic snowglobe staring at him on the dresser. The flakes were idle, but the water never still. Phil knows that he’s glad he wished for Dan and not for sight. Why have sight when you have no one to look at? 

+

It’s the first time Dan has left the house without Phil. He steps over the sun dappled puddles from the previously halted rain, glaring at the overcast sky. Dan passes a mausoleum and a meadow, dampened from the rain. Also, it’s his birthday. But that’s not important. Phil has reiterated that he was knowing of the concept of being blind, but Dan was still unsure of Phil’s well being. The sidewalks, cracked with age, were stained yellow and robin’s egg blue from chalk drawings washed away by the storm. He pauses, stares down the alleyway beside the busy road, and shuts his eyes. 

Instantly he opens them. 

There’s a vulnerability about closing your eyes in a busy place. He remembers being in church and seeing everyone, from his father to his gran, eyes sealed tight, faces pressed to their folded hands. As much as Dan would try, he could never close his eyes. He can still feel his father’s gaze fall upon him when he reciprocated Dan’s stare. Dan just couldn’t tear his eyes away from the hands of the pianist moving gracefully about the keys, or the light bouncing off of the stained glass window. So, he tries again, and this time it is six seconds before he rips them open again. He hears the roar of a car’s wheels skidding down the road, passing the tall boy facing the sidewalk, eyes sealed. He tried squeezing them shut, or closing them gently and relaxedly. A voice in the back of his head nags him, when you’re blind, you can’t open them, ever again. Like a coma you can’t wake from, a fever you can’t shake. Dan tries again, and tremulously closes his eyes. He begins to walk. A woman passes him, he can feel it, and she stares. Dan wonders if Phil would be able to feel the same stares when he becomes blind. God. 

After 57 seconds, Dan rubs his eyes and walks into a cafe, ordering a lemonade. It’s flat and tart, and he can see the powder resting on the bottom of the glass. He drinks it anyway, and reminds himself of the time. It’s early in the morning, just before AM rush hour, and Phil was still asleep. After he stirs it, a few bubbles arise, but soon dissolve. The man at the counter, the only other person in the cafe besides Dan, starts to scrub the counter, but raises an eyebrow at Dan. “What brings you here?” 

“Walk,” Dan replies. It lacks meaning, but he shuts his eyes again and tries to reach for his glass. It topples, and the lemonade splashes onto the cream tile floor. “Fuck,” Dan sighs, rising from his seat and grabbing a few napkins. 

“I got it,” Says the old man, already clutching a roll of paper towels. “What were you doing?” He asks as he mops up the mess. 

 

“My eyes were closed,” He admits, guilty. “Sorry sir,”

“It’s something to do,” He replies, a piece of his graying hair gone astray on his forehead. “But why close your eyes?” The man stares up at Dan, his green eyes twinkling. 

“I have a friend, he’s going, uh, blind,” His voice, embarrassingly, cracks on the word blind. “I wanted to see what it would be like,” 

The man nods knowingly, and takes a seat upon the lime green chair across from Dan’s little round table. “So you wanted to put yourself in this friend’s shoes?” 

“Yeah,” Dan says poignantly. 

“You must really care about this friend,” He adds, with emphasis. 

“I do,” Dan says, his heart hammering more softly in his ears. 

“Last time I loved someone that much,” The man says, tears putting a glossy film over his eyes, “I almost married her,” He smiles and Dan goes red. 

“Almost?”

“Almost,” He affirms, a sadness clouding his eyes. “I wasn’t ready, or so I thought, and she went and found herself a new husband. I never thought that I would still miss Suzanne, but sometimes I regret not doing anything to stop her. So, I suppose, whatever it is you want to do and if you really love your friend, I’d stop being so afraid and just be there for him, because God knows I wasn’t there for Suzanne,” 

Dan doesn’t reply, but he hears the man. 

“You going to finish that lemonade?” 

“Have it,” 

+

Dan runs to the house this time, up the stairs, down the hall and into Phil’s bedroom, where they had started to sleep. Last week’s outbreak became a topic neither of them discussed, and Phil’s father was rarely mentioned by either of the boys. Phil is still asleep, his arms sprawled out on the mattress, hair askew, saliva pooling on the pillow under him. He slept with his glasses on and shirt off, and Dan found himself gently pulling the glasses out from his ears and placing them on the bedside table. Gripping the comforter, he pulls it over them and puts one of Phil’s arms over his own body. He was disturbed, but he didn’t wake. Dan pushes himself against Phil’s and sleeps again, as the clouds roll in and rain falls again, pattering on the roof. 

“Happy birthday,” Dan hears a soft murmur in his ear and a weight on his thighs. Flicking his eyes open, he sees Phil’s face pressed into the place where his neck curves, legs wrapped around his hips. Dan’s mouth parts slightly in shock. He’s had sex before, guys and girls alike, but sex with Phil was both rare and just about the best sex in the world, at least, to his world. Phil grinds himself into Dan and he gasps, both out of pleasure and surprise, as usually Dan is dominative. 

It’s when Phil is pressing Dan to the sheets, his breath like fire lapping at Dan’s stomach that it happens. “Fuck, Phil,” Dan whines, grasping the sheet in handfuls. 

“Oh God, Dan,” Phil shoots up immediately, his eyes still focused on the corner of the room. He curses incoherently and his voice begins to crack, as if he was crying, but his eyes were cloudy and dry. “Dan I can’t fucking see,”

The doctor said something about his heart rate contributing to his already failing eyesight. It has been 8 hours. Dan sits impatiently in the waiting room, staring at the strange bean-like patterns on the ceiling tiles. Only relatives. Something about a tumor. Fuck, is all that loops in Dan’s head as he sleeps, alone in the guesthouse, to the tune of Phil’s mother’s grotesque sobbing next door. Dan wakes up with a migraine. He hasn’t had a migraine in years, but when they do come, they’re intense, to say the least. There’s no way he could handle a hospital, he thinks, head pulsating and his stomach deteriorating, it feels, as if with every breath. He couldn’t visit Phil today. Reluctantly, he eases himself back into bed, but rest does nothing for a constant headache, nor does a hospital for an interminable affliction, he thinks. After the mishap, Phil was rushed by a shocked Dan behind the wheel and a remorseful mother. It doesn’t hurt, it just feels strange. Well, strange is an understatement. It feels as if someone has gouged his eyes out, not the pain- there was none, but the shock was just as violent. Ophthalmologists and nurses tear Phil from Dan’s and his mother’s clutches; walking him out a room that smelled so thickly of chemicals that Phil struggled to breathe. Dan yells something, but in the chaos of everything, he can’t understand. 

“What can you see?” A burly voice asks, and Phil can’t tell if its a joke. He balls his hands into fists and unclenches them, wishing Dan was next to him instead of doctors. But what did he see? Phil feels as if he is diving into the opaque darkness. “I thought I was dying,” Is all he says. This is followed by the sound of scribbling on clipboards and hushed conversation between doctors. There’s a pair of hands latched to his shoulders, guiding him out of the room, but they aren’t Dan’s. 

Phil doesn’t remember when he fell asleep, nor does Dan in the waiting room. Mrs Lester dabbed at her tears and Dan couldn’t help but stare at her quizzically. Had she known that Phil’s sight has been worsening, like stars blink out of the sky at dawn? Or has she been repressing the thought, along with her husband leaving? He pulls his coat over his shoulders and covers his pajama shirt (hastily dressed). He’s just relieved that he isn’t the only one dressed so haphazardly in the room (leather jacket, sweatpants and mis-matched trainers) compared to the multiple others seated next to him in the most disheveled outfits and destroyed form; mothers sobbing into their husband’s sleeves, a teenage boy with his head in his hands, unmoving. Timid fathers tapping their feet on the grey carpet, children pushing toy tractors around the fish tank, but not with much enthusiasm. Every time a doctor would enter, all would straighten under the fluorescent light. Mostly, he would pull a family into a small room off of the door they took Phil into and talk in hushed tones. Usually they left in tears. When a new doctor entered the room and everyone assembled themselves, he called for Mrs. Lester and Dan, whom he assumed was her son into the little room. 

It was like a closet, really, about six by eight feet. The doctor looks young, but his eyes are weary and aged. “Your son is going to be just fine, but there is no way his sight ever will be restored,” This isn’t a shock to either of them; Phil’s mother nods and sniffs, Dan silent. 

“Can we see him?”

“He’s resting right now, but I would perhaps get him a few things from home, you know, make him feel comfortable,” He shows Mrs. Lester numbers and tiny print on a clipboard and she seems to understand. She turns to Dan, and hands him the keys to her car. “Go home and gather his things-” Dan obliges, and leaves as soon as possible. When he passes the hospital door, he considered entering. He has never heard a more heartbroken voice than her’s. Everyone in the waiting room stared at him when he re-entered, somewhat unshaken. The teenage boy even meets him with a grave expression. 

The parking garage is less hectic than it had been when they arrived, and Dan reaches the house sooner than expected. He’s proud of himself for keeping himself together for so long. It’s not like Phil is dead, anyway. Dan sheds his jacket in the heat, and makes his way to Phil’s room. 

Phil keeps his room messy. There’s a cluttered bedside table, a snowglobe, stacks of paper, empty cups of water, askew pairs of jeans and socks littering the floor. Dan smiles. He takes Phil’s laptop, but questions over how he would use it. So he grabs some earbuds as well. The laptop flickers to life, and on the screen, Dan sees yellow paragraphs and orange letters. The title was Happiness: A Theory. He wonders if he should read it, but he sits on the bed anyway. It squeaks a little as he sits. The first sentence preceded a chill tickling Dan’s spine, and he takes it as a sign to stop reading, but he scrolls further down. Happiness is when you stop crying and start believing, was the opening. A few pages down, a bolded section of text all grouped into a bracket labeled OMIT. 

Being happy is being at the top of a ferris wheel and diving into a bottomless pit and the pounding of your heart in your ears and the sweat embedded in the calluses of your hands when he reaches for them and it’s the worst feeling in the world, but it makes you feel something, and it's so distant that it could be called love. Love is only a theory, happiness if just an emotion, but it's something I believe in, and I used to refer to myself as a solipsist. Happiness is a twisted nest of wires in my gut that I can hardly feel anymore. But I can feel it in his hands and his chest and his hair and his eyes and I know that everything will be okay when I see him and breathe him and hear him and he makes me trip and stutter and ramble- 

A tear lands itself in between the space bar and the M key, and Dan feels his own eyes, damp and sourly bitter. He thinks about Phil and the ocean and his eyes, oh fuck, his eyes were so beautiful that no photograph, no painting, no word could ever capture them, except for one that Phil could pull from the sky and type without even thinking and he was just so Phil that Dan finds himself being the one to stumble and murmur and be the one to fall back upon the bed and stare at the ceiling and cover his face in anguish. You’ve defeated me, Phil Lester, he thinks to himself, tears sliding down his cheeks at such a rapid rate, a tear for his sister, a tear for each of Phil’s eyes, tears for Phil, who would never see the stupid ocean he was so obsessed with, and so many damn tears for the sea. They don’t stop coming. And whenever Dan sees the sea, he thinks of Phil’s eyes, and he realizes that Phil loved the sea because he could. 

And Dan tells him everything beautiful he sees, from the cathedral of tree branches above them to the ragged and choked reds that stain one’s teeth after drinking too much wine, to the teardrops that turn copy paper purple, to the lacquer waves of the ocean on the cracked shore. To the colour of the sky at 5 in the morning, the same colour of Phil’s text when he tells his professor why he truly cannot estimate the emotion of happiness, cannot summarize it into words. _I guess I’m not fit to write. Perhaps happiness is when the white noise in your head stops and changes colour, and it’s a colour that I cannot describe. It’s the colour of callused hands and cheap lipstick and taxi cabs and a when you reach the bottom of a lake and the water turns teal and frigid. The colour of the life jacket you find in your grandpa’s old red fishing boat and the last colour you see before you fall asleep. It’s when the best and the worst feelings in the world coalesced. It’s when you start caring about someone else more than yourself, but I never haved loved myself more than I have loved him. You told me to step it up and I have failed. But I have succeeded in finally experiencing happiness, which is as much as I’ll ever need. I don't need a star or a goddamn snowglobe to tell me how i feel anymore. I know how I feel, I know what I need, and I have it._

“I could see myself living by the sea in the future,” Phil repeats, apropos of nothing, and listens to the crashing of the waves upon the shore from outside his window. Somehow, the sea is all the reassurance he needs. 

_Buddhists believe that whatever they have has already been taken from them."When I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.” Every precious moment must be savored like a wilting flower, so, to you, dear reader, wherever you are, go and do what you must to be happy. It’s a feeling that comes around fewer times than Halley’s comet; but it is far more beautiful._

The End


End file.
